The Ranger's Bride. Laurie Grant

you please step out while I…ahem!…assist Miss Addy to breathe better?”

      Addy had no need for tight-lacing and had had about enough of Miss Morgan’s fluttering, well-intentioned though it was. She opened her eyes. “Never mind, Miss Beatrice, I’m breathing just fine, truly I am,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster.

      Beatrice Morgan looked disappointed. “Well, if you’re sure, dear.”

      Asa Wilson cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Addy, I’ll be leaving for a little while anyway. I’ve got to go out there now and organize a posse. I won’t be gone any longer than it takes to capture those no-good bas—Pardon me, ladies, those outlaws,” he amended. “In the meantime, Miss Morgan can stay with you here. And then I’ll take you home in my buggy.”

      Addy knew there wasn’t a chance in a million that the outlaws would still be in the area, but she didn’t want to deflate his pride by arguing with him. She couldn’t stay here, though, not with the wounded Ranger awaiting her return!

      “But it could take you hours to find their trail and capture the outlaws, and then you’ll be much too busy guarding them to be worrying about me, Asa—though I thank you for your concern, of course. I’m feeling much better, truly I am,” she insisted. “Let me just sit here for a few minutes, and then I’ll just walk on home—”

      “You’ll do no such thing,” Beatrice said, clucking disapprovingly. “It’s out of the question for you to be alone tonight. After your grueling ordeal, you need the company of another woman. You’ll come to my house and stay the night. You’ll have a hot bath while I wash the bloodstains out of that dress, and you can wear an old wrapper of mine while it dries.”

      “I’m much obliged, Miss Morgan,” Asa said, looking relieved as he strode to the door. “Miss Addy, you do just what she says. I’ll call on you there in the morning.”

      If it hadn’t been for the presence of Rede Smith at her house, Addy would have been tempted to allow Beatrice to take her to her home and fuss over her. Addy had already been invited for supper twice and knew that Beatrice Morgan was a legendary cook, and she was sure she would feel much better for a bit of the kindly older woman’s pampering. But she had to get home to the Ranger. Every minute she delayed increased the Ranger’s chance of developing fatal blood poisoning.

      “But I’m afraid I can’t—”

      The sheriff let the door slam shut behind him, a man on a mission of justice.

      “Miss Beatrice, I appreciate your kindness,” Addy began, “truly I do, but I’m fine. I’ll just walk on home. I have so much to do—”

      “Addy Kelly, all that stitching can wait. You’ve had a dreadful shock. Walking on home by yourself, indeed! You wouldn’t make it five yards beyond the barber shop! If you won’t come to my house, I’m coming to yours!”

      Oh, dear, now she had truly made things worse. She could just picture Beatrice Morgan discovering the wounded man in her bedroom!

      She could see there was no use arguing with the determined spinster. But the excitement appeared to have taken a toll on the old woman, for she looked suddenly fatigued. That gave Addy an idea.

      “Miss Beatrice, I suppose you’re right,” she said meekly. “I shouldn’t think of going home right now. In fact, I’m suddenly so tired I can’t even move beyond this jail. I think I’ll just go lie down in there for a few minutes,” she said, pointing to the cot in one of the jail’s two cells. As soon as I’ve rested, we’ll walk down to your house, all right?” She wasn’t worried about using the same cot on which lawbreakers slept. The cells rarely had occupants, and Asa was so fastidious that the whole town teased him about having the sheets laundered after a cell had been occupied.

      “Now you’re sounding more sensible!” Miss Beatrice crowed triumphantly. “You do just that! I’ll sit right here and wait. Don’t you get up a single moment before you’re ready.”

      As soon as Addy rose and moved toward the cell on the right, she plopped herself down in the same chair Addy had been sitting in. Already, the plump older woman’s eyelids were sagging over her watery, pale eyes. “I’ll be right here, dear,” the older woman murmured.

      Addy made a great show of settling herself down on the narrow cot, yawning elaborately while she said, “I declare, I’m suddenly so tired…don’t let me fall asleep, Miss Beatrice….”

      Beatrice Morgan’s eyes had already drifted shut.

      Addy lay on the cot in the jail cell, listening to the horses’ snorting and stamping of hooves, the creak of leather and the jingling of spurs and bits as the men of Connor’s Crossing prepared to ride in pursuit of the Fogarty Gang.

      It took about half an hour, but finally they were ready and Addy heard Asa Wilson call, “All right, men, looks like we’re ready to move out. Sooner we hit the trail, the sooner we catch those no-account bastards and bring them to trial. Now, there’ll be no talk of lynching, is that clear?”

      Dear Asa, Addy thought. As upright and steadfast as the day was long. He truly believed that he and his little Connor’s Crossing posse were going to come upon the outlaws, milling around out there among the hills, just waiting to be caught.

      Asa was a good man, and Addy was fond of him, and even fonder of his little boy Billy. Billy’s mama had died two years ago during a cholera epidemic, and Addy knew Asa wanted to give the boy a mother again. And so Asa had decided he was in love with Addy, and perhaps he really was. But Addy knew she didn’t love Asa, and probably never would, and that her assumed widowhood functioned as a sort of shield from his ready devotion. She realized that when the year was up since her husband’s supposed “death” she was going to have to either accept the proposal of marriage Asa would undoubtedly offer, or admit that she didn’t love him.

      She also knew that all it would take to discourage Asa Wilson was the truth—that she was a divorced woman, not a widow. Shock would widen those clear blue eyes, and then he would look sad. He would say he understood, and of course he would not trouble her with his attentions again. And he would never tell anyone in town that she had deceived them all in order to retain their goodwill, and that she was no honest widow, but a woman who was beyond the pale of respectability—who had actually divorced her husband.

      Addy couldn’t tell him, or anyone, the truth. No one must know that her former husband still lived back in St. Louis—assuming, of course, he had not fallen afoul of some liquored-up gambler who caught him cheating at cards.

      All sound had died away outside. Carefully, moving slowly to minimize the rustling of the straw-stuffed mattress beneath her, she sat up and then tiptoed to the shuttered window.

      By the desk, Beatrice Morgan snored, her mouth slackly open, her head sagging on her thick neck.

      The shutter creaked on its hinges as she pulled it open, and Addy froze, but the old woman did not awaken.

      Cautiously, she peered out.

      The streets were deserted for as far as she could see in either direction. The stagecoach had been moved down the street and parked in front of the undertaker’s shop, no doubt to make removal of the big man’s body easier. Someone had unhitched the four horses that had pulled it. She couldn’t see the livery from here, but she was sure the horses had been put into the corral with hay and water and would remain there until the stage company claimed them.

      She had to leave Asa a note, or he’d worry, and perhaps come looking for her at her house. She’d better include Miss Beatrice too, who would be distraught when she woke to find her gone. Careful not to make a noise that would wake the still-snoring woman, Addy grabbed a wanted notice lying on the desk and a stub of a pencil, turned the stiff paper over, and wrote:

      Dear Asa and Miss Beatrice,

      Thank you for your kindness. I’ve gone on home, as I’m sure I’ll be more comfortable in my own place. I’m going to go to bed as soon as I get there. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.